Adventure, November 1915 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Gold Lust ain’t goin’ to get me,’ I yelled at him an’ I tumbled Henley’s body overside. That - was the last I saw of the shark. “Then I began to see yellow. The sun was shinin’ into the open chest of gold. I remember grabbin’ a pannikin an’ scoopin’ up the dust, a thousand dollars at a throw, I reckon, an’ scatterin’ it on the sea like it was yellow seed. I must have emptied it an’ then fainted. “T come back, maybe that day, mebbe the day after, with a squall tippin’ the boat over an’ my body soakin’ in torrents of rain. I must have taken the rain up like a sponge. An’, if I hadn’t spilled that gold, the boat would have capsized for certain. My sail was down, an’ that helped. The squall passed, the sun came out an’ I was glad to see it for the first time for many a day. I got some food into me, ran the rain- water off the folds of the sail into the keg, hoisted the sail an’ got on the course once more, with a bit of courage still left in me. “IT was afraid of passing land in the night now, an’ used to sleep daytimes, under the sail for shade. The stars an’ a new moon was enough to make me sure of pickin’ up anything the size of the Hawaiis as long as I kept awake. I knew I was makin’ longi- — tude by the way the Southern Cross was dippin’ close to the horizon.- My time was all mixed up, but I figure it was the four- teenth or fifteenth morning when I raised land on either side of me. You'll find them there on the map, Mister Addams, Laau Point on Molokai Island to port of me, an’ Kaena Point, on Lanai, to starboard. __ “T wasn’t out of it yet, till I could get through the reef. I’ve seen double-ender whaleboats since then rolled end-over makin’ an opening, many a time, in the rollers that snake across where the reef is low enough for you to tackle it. I guess the sight of land heartened me up an’ put some strength in me, for I caught a comber an’ shot across the lagoon an’ up the sand on to a bay like ‘a crescent, walled in by lava cliffs with their ee running out far into the sea on each side. CHAPTER V THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI “PIHERE wasn’t a soul in sight and I knew the natives were friendly, so I lay down in the sand under the shadow of the boat an’ slept, with the tide goin’ out, 17 till noon, or after, when the sun sneaked over an’ got into my eyes. I got something to eat an’ started exploring. I was on the lee coast of Molokai, though I didn’t know which island I was on then, an’ for a bit it looked as if I had jumped out of the soup- kettle on to the stove. bs “The little beach was like a prison with | the cliffs an’ the sea. All the water I had left was about half a gallon, not extry sweet at that, an’ there was none in sight. On top of the cliffs I could see palms fringin’ the summit an’ I knew there was water there if I could make shift to climb up. They was a few big cracks in the cliff wall that looked as if it might be tackled, an’ it had to be. But I rested an’ slept good all that day an’ that night. The sand made a good bed—I could stretch out full length, anyway, an’ I slept like a kid. ‘“‘Next morning I felt better, an’ after breakfast I started to climb. It was hard goin’, an’ the lava cut like flint. My hands went first, then my clothes, what they was of them, then my shoes. But I had to keep goin’, the water was all gone. “They was a ledge or so I managed to rest on a bit, an’ finally I reached a little valley like a pocket, about two-thirds of the way up. It was covered with long grasses, but there wasn’t any water. The cliffs up to the palms at the top was worse than the ones [ had tackled, but I was afraid of get- tin’ stiff an’ I was about all in so I went to them. : “Half way up I got stuck. I couldn’t get up an’ I couldn’t get down. I stuck there clingin’ somehow, the way a sick cat might, gettin’ dizzy an’ dizzier. A lot of faces like apes was grinnin’ at me from the top. I lost my grip about then, fainted, I reckon, an’ flopped to the bottom. “When I come to it was like a nightmare. They was a ring of natives round me, gib- berin’ Kanaka an’ lookin’ down at me. They was just scraps of humanity, pretty bad to talk about, let alone look at—the lepers of Molokai. They was kind enough, an’ after you got used to ’em you couldn’t help but like ’°em. They had seen me creep- in’ up the cliff an’, when I fell, climbed down somehow an’ hauled me up. They could climb like goats, all of em. I had a pretty bad smash in the side of my skull, how bad I never knew, but they fixed it up with plasters of red mud an’ herbs an’ pulled me through. _ j comichbook (E()